Gulp! The moment she felt something go down her throat, Eleonora, who had been blankly staring through the bars, hurriedly raised her hand and wiped the drool trickling from the corner of her mouth.
"This is... strange!"
'This is clearly an abnormal situation! I drooled? I actually drooled! Why?! Why on earth?!'
Just a few minutes ago... just a few minutes ago, she had been feeling proud of herself for upholding her knightly honor and human dignity, believing she had protected everything, and even glimpsing hope in this desperate future!
But of all people, it was her! She, who had endured such harsh training to reach this level and the countless trials that came with it; she, who had never once uttered a sound of pain, complaint, or weeping in the face of countless temptations thrust upon her as if testing her; she, who during that grueling training, without exaggeration, had filled her belly with dew and driven herself relentlessly until she finally reached a state where she could control her bodily desires through sheer willpower!
How could she be drooling over that... that mashed-up pile of food scraps, that unidentifiable object?!
This was a bizarre phenomenon only Eleonora herself could know. But having personally experienced the strange and sinister magic(?) of that bastard today, Eleonora suddenly remembered the words he had said to her.
-"Alright, a deal, is a deal. If you eat this, I won't lay a hand on those clothes and armor. I might even remove the restriction on your hands. But in return, you must faithfully eat every single meal I bring you, every time."
The words he had spat out when he proposed that deal that didn't even feel like a proper deal.
-"You must faithfully eat every single meal I bring you, every time."
The words he had uttered with that utterly sinister smile flashed through her mind. Eleonora hurriedly bowed her head and looked at her hands.
"Don't tell me, it can't be...!"
All ten fingers, from thumbs to pinkies, on both her right and left hands, were intact and moved without restriction. There was no resistance when she tried to exert strength either.
"I was too hasty. I should have been suspicious from the moment he, that bastard who can manipulate a Grand Master of the continent at will, somehow made me choose an option that only put me at a disadvantage!"
When he tried to feed her that food garbage, there must have been a clear reason and purpose. Simply to demean her, to make her feel humiliation.
'But normally, such tactics are used on those driven to the brink of survival after days without any water or food! To try it on me, who hasn't even been here for half a day... I must have unconsciously looked down on him for it!'
Even in this miserable situation, intoxicated by her position as a Grand Master, by being at the pinnacle of power, by her reputation as the invincible strongest knight, she had let her guard down.
Against an opponent whom she should never let her guard down around, she had unknowingly, in a corner of her heart, made the fatal mistake of underestimating him.
That's right, no matter what tricks you have up your sleeve, you're still just an ignorant fool who doesn't even know the ways of the world well enough to understand what kind of woman you've captured!
Did you think that just because I went half a day without a drop of water or a crumb of bread, I would beg for my life, promising to serve on your bed if you just gave me anything to eat?
She wanted to curse herself for secretly laughing at him, thinking he knew nothing.
'He called it a deal. But who would have thought the deal would be like this!'
Grrrroowl-!
"He's forcing me to feel appetite, hunger, and starvation?!"
[A Sow faithfully eats all the food given by the Master.]
This was one of the rules secretly established by the Shinseon during the Eleonora's 'butthole inspection' commotion when she had passed out.
Of course, Eleonora had no way of knowing this. She simply perceived that the deal she had made with him had taken effect like a deal with a devil, and she bit her lip at his evil power that was forcibly drawing out hunger from within her.
Grrrroowl!
"My stomach... my stomach is hungry... Ignoring my will, my body... my belly is demanding that I feed it now...!"
For the first time in years, her appetite, which she had always endured and suppressed except when necessary, began to assault her body like a collapsing dam, like a massive wave driven by a typhoon.
"Haa... My stomach... needs... food... I must... resist... slurp, haa... Food, food...!"
She needed food. For the first time in a long time, she wanted something other than dry rations or jerky. She strongly desired something other than the tasteless dried foods she always ate to maintain her condition.
"I need food... I need food...!"
There were pigs around, but for some reason, the thought of hunting and eating them didn't cross her mind. It was akin to the principle of a person not looking at another person and thinking, 'Ah, that looks delicious.'
"Aah... slurp, ah..."
What she ultimately reached for was the plate outside her pen, the plate holding the kimchi fried rice the Fresh Boy had left behind.
"I mustn't eat it...! That's the... food garbage made to mock me... I mustn't eat it...?!"
As if bewitched by something, Eleonora staggered towards the pen door, plopped down on the spot, and reached her hand through the bars to get the plate.
But Thud! Something transparent blocked her hand, as if hitting a solid iron plate. Thinking back, she remembered she was under a restriction that prevented her from leaving the confines of this iron cage.
She couldn't retrieve it even if she wanted to.
Eleonora leaned weakly against the wall and lamented.
"Ah... I'm so hungry... The food is right there, yet I cannot eat it..."
But then, something suddenly came to mind.
Amidst the earlier commotion with the Fresh Boy, who had been poking his finger into her anus...
At that time, she had clearly...!
"Please... please..."
Eleonora carefully stuck her head through the iron bars. And as expected, Eleonora was overjoyed that the top of her head passed through the bars and tried to immediately plunge her face into the plate, but...
Thud-!
This time, her armor was the problem. The high, raised neckline of this armor, designed to protect her neck, got caught on the bars, preventing her head from getting through.
"Slurp, Aah, just a little more. Just a little further and I could eat...?!"
To think her own honor would trip her up like this!
After struggling for a while, thud-thud-ing repeatedly trying to push her head through, Eleonora finally pulled her head back, biting her lip. And, the moment she reached for the buckle on her breastplate...
The cold sensation of metal felt at her fingertips.
This armor, which a knight must never remove under any circumstances, which must be worn even in the coffin on the day one falls in battle, instead of burial clothes—this armor, which along with the sword, represents the honor of a knight!
To think that because of that vile bastard's schemes, she would be removing it from her body for the second time in just this single day!
"Not... a chance... Do you think I'll take it off...?! I will never take it off!"
But heedless of the poor knight's cries, Eleonora's hands began to undo the buckles of her armor, one by one.
Moreover, for some reason, separate from the overwhelming appetite dominating her now, the moment she started unfastening the armor, she felt a peculiar sense of refreshment, she supposed.
"Just you wait... I will... I will definitely survive and have my revenge...!"
Before she knew it, she was tearing off her buckles, unfastening her armor. The moment Eleonora, now free from the armor's constriction, felt her chest spring upward, boing, she immediately began pushing her head through the iron bars.
With a thud, the armor was cast aside, but she didn't care anymore.
"Food, it's food..."
She was too preoccupied with drooling over the unidentified slop before her eyes. She was too busy, like the pigs that had swarmed her earlier, sniffing and snuffling at the fried rice.
"Haa... Sour, and yet the smell of oil...? Ugh, for food scraps, it has a... a rather appetizing appearance, doesn't it?"
From now on, she was going to eat this food garbage. She was going to accept and eat the leftover scraps from that evil bastard. She had denounced Shinseon. Every time she saw him as an evil being who didn't even know the things a human should and shouldn't do, but...
"This... is to survive. As the saying goes, a dragon's revenge is never late, even if it takes a thousand years. By eating this now, I too will never forget this humiliation...!"
In reality, she was muttering these plausible excuses to herself while looking the part of someone drooling over slop fit for livestock.
But for Eleonora, whose eyes were already fixated on the food before her, this process was nothing short of a kind of prayer.
"I, the continent's youngest Master, praised as the Grand Master who appears only once in a thousand years, have now been reduced to a... a pig, forced to eat scraps, eeeeeeek...!"
The words she uttered to steel her will and resolve had become a kind of ritual, no different from giving thanks to the Lord for providing the day's sustenance before a meal.
And having finished her meal prayer, disguised as a reaffirmation of her resolve, Eleonora took a big gulp, swallowing hard as she looked at the feast laid out before her.
"Haa..."
She couldn't hold back any longer.
She wouldn't hold back any longer.
"Let's eat...♥
Having finished her thanksgiving for the prey before her, even wagging her bottom slightly, Eleonora opened her mouth wide, sllluurp, and plunged her head face-first into the plate.
At the noise Eleonora was making, a few of the pigs enjoying their nap inside the pen cracked open their eyes, wondering if mealtime had come already. Seeing the sow, her plump bottom waggling, engrossed in her meal, they closed their eyes again.
-Snoore?
But that female... why is she drooling from her lower mouth too? Just how tasty is it?
A strange question lingered, but the pigs, having neither the balls nor the ability to stand up anyway, couldn't do anything about it, so they slowly closed their eyes and drifted off to dreamland.